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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22388479">life goal: punch a god in the face</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthechocopuff/pseuds/itsthechocopuff'>itsthechocopuff</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adopted Sibling Relationship, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Everybody Lives, False Identity, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Nohara Rin Lives, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Uchiha Obito Lives, apart from danzo, but he can die in a ditch, cause time travel innit, more time travel because i have no self restraint!, we do not let kakashi be sad in this house</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:22:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22388479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthechocopuff/pseuds/itsthechocopuff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fist poised to punch a goddess. A glare from opalescent eyes. A flicker of chakra.</p><p>Sakura’s fist met Kaguya’s face at the same time her vision went black.</p><p>When she woke up, it was to find herself twenty years in the past, with a pair of eyes she’d personally helped shut staring down at her.</p><p>(alt: Minato was not supposed to be this hot, and Sasori was definitely not supposed to be cute and helpful)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haruno Sakura &amp; Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura &amp; Sasori</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>112</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1210</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. punch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so! as we all know, i have no restraint when it comes to indulging my brain goblin.</p><p>this fic idea was birthed and written in the span of three days, most of which were spent on assorted planes, so please don't expect coherence.</p><p>in this house, we spend hours doing research and proceed to hammer the plot to fit our will when narutopedia fails. </p><p>chapter summary:<br/>oh no, he's cute<br/>oh no, he's hot<br/>oh no, SHE'S hot</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sakura flies down towards Kaguya, her Byakugou painting her face with stark, threatening lines and a chakra-charged fist raised and ready to rearrange the goddess's face. </p><p>Yet milliseconds before her fist has a chance to connect, Kaguya raises her eyes from where they were trained on Sasuke and Naruto and that odd, otherworldly glare settles firmly on her. Sakura feels a splinter of energy, not unlike a static shock enter her chakra coils, a wave of cold travelling up her spine and cresting at the base of her skull, but she's come too far to stop now. </p><p>So she doesn't.</p><p>She lets her fist connect, discharges all the chakra she's got left in that one punch, and the resulting <em>explosion</em> of energy throws her hundreds of feet away from her old teammates and the goddess, and that cold feeling spiders out from her skull and spreads over her whole body. </p><p>She doesn't recall hitting her head, but she passes out, blinding white light exploding behind her closed eyes moments before the blazing battlefield is swallowed by oppressive, cold darkness and she knows no more.</p>
<hr/><p>Sakura hits the ground with a tumble and a curse, and she feels so worn out, all she wants is to close her eyes and sleep for an age. She's warm, the sand is soft, and it's quiet, and she feels the desire to open her eyes and get back to the fight wane with every passing-</p><p>Wait a second, <em>sand</em>?! <em>Quiet</em>?! </p><p>She shoots up and swears again, her hand flying up to her forehead, the reflex to heal the pounding headache an instinct at this point, yet no healing chakra appears. A quick inventory reveals that her coils aren't just <em>empty</em>, they're completely <em>depleted</em>, and, honestly, it’s no wonder she feels so exhausted.</p><p>Then, she forces herself to focus on what distracted her in the first place: sand and quiet. The battlefield was never quiet, not even when she would finally the chance to retire to her tent and try to get some shut-eye before the next day of fighting and the new batch of injured patients would come.</p><p>Carefully, because her common sense is telling her that something went <em>very</em> wrong in the precious seconds between her punching Kaguya and ending up...wherever she currently is, she pries her eyes open.</p><p>And curses.</p><p>
  <em>Again.</em>
</p><p>It’s far too bright.</p><p>Then, a quiet chuckle, one that is <em>definitely</em> not her own, and so quiet she'd have written it off as a breath of wind or a simple exhale if she wasn't as thoroughly trained in interpreting <em>Stoic-Asshole-ese</em> as she is, breaks her assessment of her surroundings. </p><p>She startles and forces her eyes to focus, then freezes at what they land on. </p><p>About twenty feet to her left sits a boy, a bunch of papers and miscellaneous wooden pieces strewn around him, yet his attention is trained entirely on her. That in itself wouldn't have been odd, if not for the fact that he's the only person in her immediate vicinity, instead of the bustling battlefield she remembers from mere seconds previous. Though, if she's honest with herself, she could've forgiven that too, what with her momentary lapse into unconsciousness, but what she absolutely <em>cannot</em> ignore is the fact that she <em>recognises</em> this boy. </p><p>She recognises the flat amber that gazes at her like she's a particularly interesting science experiment. She <em>especially</em> recognises those eyes because helped shut them not three years earlier. </p><p>
  <em>Akasuna no Sasori.</em>
</p><p>But why is Sasori <em>alive</em>, and looking not a day over twelve? And <em>why</em> can she see the pink of sunburn clearly on his cheeks, and a face still lined with baby-fat? </p><p>The Akasuna no Sasori she knew was ashes and dust, and she helped make him so <em>twice</em>. </p><p>Even with her coils as depleted as they are, she can still interrupt her chakra flow and restart it again as a substitute for the standard genjutsu-breaking technique. Yet, when the scene before her doesn’t change, Sakura takes a few seconds to, simply put, freak out.</p><p>She’s not on the battlefield. Kaguya is nowhere in sight, neither are Sasuke or Naruto or Tsunade or Kakashi. In fact, it looks as if she’s somewhere in the Land of Wind, because no other country to her knowledge has sand as far as the eye can see, and there’s a soon-to-be S-Rank nuke-nin sitting casually in front of her, looking a good twenty years younger than when she last remembers seeing him.</p><p>She closes her eyes in despair, hand flying up to her mouth to stifle the quick, panicked breaths she’s making, trying her damnest not to hyperventilate. Sakura can feel the cold claws of panic sinking into her heart and lungs, and she should probably be a lot more worried than she is about showing weakness to <em>Akasuna no Sasori</em>, but this tween version of Sasori with the Suna headband still around his neck has yet to kill the Kazekage. At this point, he's just an unhinged kid, and his taijutsu is doubtless worse than what it was when she faced him in that cave. </p><p>In short, if worst comes to worst, she can take him.</p><p>Finally, she gets her panic under control, bundles it up and shoves it into the deepest corner of her mind, to be dealt with later.</p><p>“Where am I?” she asks at last, voice scratchy from her panic attack and dehydration.</p><p>“Border of Wind and the Land of Rivers.” Sasori replies, just as quietly, and that same lazy, bored tone that she remembers from his thirty-year-old self is present in his teen self. “Were you expecting to be elsewhere?” he asks idly, but Sakura is not fooled by the apparent disinterest.</p><p>She tries for a smile, but her muscles have long forgotten how to make that expression, and she ends up with a tiny quirk of her lip that is wry and self-deprecating and only a few lines shy of a grimace.</p><p>“Wind is good.” She says at last, wiping the back of her hand over her eyes, surprised when she doesn’t feel any tears. “Why are you so far from the Village?” she asks, her mouth running before her brain can tell it <em>no</em>.</p><p>Sasori raises an eyebrow, tilting his head, birdlike.</p><p>“A question for a question?” he inquires, and when she nods reluctantly, he lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug. “The Village suffocates me. Here, I can think, and make art in peace.”</p><p>
  <em>Art. </em>
</p><p>Sakura almost laughs. It seems some things never change.</p><p>“Who are you?” Sasori demands, his stare becoming more weighted as he studies her. “You appeared in a burst of white light and chakra so potent, I'm surprised the border patrol hasn't come running yet. You bear the Byakugou, and I do not recognise your uniform, nor your colouring.”</p><p>Sakura sighs as she tries to come up with something that won’t get her reported and killed quicker than she can say ‘dimension-travel’, and casts an inconspicuous glance at her hands, relieved to note that the thick black lines of the Byakugou are nowhere to be found.</p><p>“My name is Sakura.” She says slowly, raising her gaze from her hands and meeting Sasori’s eyes. “I…don’t know who I am.”</p><p>A lie, while also not. She’s the Godaime’s apprentice, Assistant Head of the Konoha General Hospital, one of the second coming of the Legendary Sannin. She has perfect chakra control, has surpassed Tsunade, and, most recently, punched a goddess in the face.</p><p>Yet, what is she here, around two decades in the past, in a time when she wasn’t even <em>born</em> yet?</p><p>“How can you not know?” Sasori presses, and now, his eyes narrow, though Sakura absently realises that the action is more thoughtful than suspicious.</p><p>Thinking quickly, she mirrors his earlier shrug and offers a wry smile.</p><p>"I was a lab rat." She offers carefully, suddenly immensely glad the ribbon of her ‘<em>shinobi’</em> headband had frayed a few days earlier and she'd been too busy to get it replaced. "I was taken really young and experimented on. This,” she gestures at her forehead, and Sasori’s eyes follow her hand, “is the result of Senju DNA.”</p><p>She can see the gears in his head turning, yet when he opens his mouth to ask something else, she shakes her head.</p><p>“A question for a question.” She reminds him, and she wonders where her sense of self-preservation has gone. Sasori frowns, caught out, but nods reluctantly. “Who are you?”</p><p>“Sasori. Suna jounin.” He answers brusquely, and Sakura should not be surprised he’s a jounin so young, knowing what she knows, and yet. “How did you end up here?”</p><p>
  <em>Shit. </em>
</p><p>Sakura looks around desperately, trying to recall everything she’s said and what Sasori has told her in turn, racking her brain for any technique she knows that could result in white light and instantaneous teleportation.</p><p>“I…tried an experimental space-time ninjutsu to get out and it dropped me here." She says at last, hoping her tone sounds more confident than she feels.</p><p>She remembers the design on the Yondaime’s kunai, remembers the sealing array on Katsuyuu’s summoning scroll, as well as the four-corners sealing barrier. She's skirting the edges of plausibility and testing her luck, but she’s almost sure she could mock-up a transportation seal if Sasori calls her bluff.</p><p>"And I suppose you killed your captors before getting out, which is why you have blood under your nails?" Sasori asks casually, calm as could be, seemingly forgetting about his own rule of question-for-a-question, and Sakura snorts despite herself. </p><p>The way he is now, Sasori reminds her of Gaara after having Shukaku extracted from him. Blunt. Unruffled. Always distantly amused. Try as she might, it’s difficult to remember to keep her guard up.</p><p>"You suppose correctly." She replies, because she can't deny that she has blood under her nails and streaking up her arms, not to mention multiple cuts and bruised and hastily-healed injuries, only some of which could be explained as wounds gained in a lab or during escape attempts.</p><p>"Hm." Sasori hums, considering. "It's a decent alibi." He decides at last, and Sakura's blood runs cold.</p><p>“My turn for questions. And you owe me two.” She announces, swallowing around her suddenly-dry throat and not letting herself drop eye-contact. “Why haven’t you reported me to the borer patrol you mentioned earlier? Surely, an unknown kunoichi appearing in a ‘burst of white light and chakra’ is reason enough to be suspicious.”</p><p>To her shock, the corner of Sasori’s lips twitches upwards.</p><p>“You’re a break from the monotony.” He tells her simply. “And I’d like to hear the true version of your alibi one day, which I can’t do if Suna executes you." </p><p>Sakura gawks. “<em>That’s it?</em>”</p><p>Sasori blinks slowly, as if confused by her disbelief, and Sakura allows herself an incredulous, relieved laugh. </p><p>"Okay. In that case, any advice for how I could turn 'decent' alibi into an 'airtight' one?" She asks, because she's had enough experience with child geniuses to know how to graciously admit defeat, and this situation is ridiculous enough as is that she throws caution to the wind. </p><p>"Dye your hair." Sasori suggests immediately, and Sakura does a double-take. "Your colouring, while intriguing, is too exotic. And a more earthy tone will lend more credibility to your story about Senju DNA." He pauses, tilts his head and narrows his eyes thoughtfully. “What are your specialisations, Sakura-san?”</p><p>“Healing.” Sakura answers instantly, because she will forever be proud of how far she’s come from ‘no-name, cry-baby, Billboard-Brow’, even if that means she won’t hesitate to boast in front of a tween version of her first S-Ranked kill. “Chakra-aided combat. And…fuinjutsu, at a stretch.”</p><p>“Hm.” Sasori hums, and those analytical eyes are far too similar to his thirty-year-old self for Sakura to feel entirely comfortable. “A dark red could mark you as an Uzushio survivor, if you wished.”</p><p>
  <em>Uzushio. Uzumaki. Oh, god, Naruto. </em>
</p><p>She bites her lip and uses the pain to shove down the panic that threatens to bubble up again. She will not break down, not in front of Sasori. Not until she has a clearer grasp on just how screwed she is.</p><p>“If I dyed my hair red, we’d look like siblings.” She runs her mouth, giving voice to the first random thought that comes to mind once the panic recedes, then almost smacks herself at her stupidity.</p><p>Sasori, however, looks contemplative.</p><p>“Perhaps not siblings, but…cousins, certainly.” He allows, then his eyes brighten, and Sakura sees the intelligence that shines in them clearly, and wonders how much longer until that genius turns to madness.</p><p>Then, Sasori speaks.</p><p>“I’d like to suggest an alternate alibi, if you’re willing.” He announces, and at her hesitant nod, continues. “My father had a sister, but she defected from the Village before I was born, not wanting to be a shinobi. That’s who my parents were visiting when they were killed.”</p><p>Sakura has a moment of absolute incredulity, then she narrows her eyes thoughtfully and considers what Sasori is offering. “And did your father’s sister have children?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” Sasori answers, and there’s a pleased glint in his eyes, as if surprised she’s following his line of thought. “But she was killed along with my parents six years ago.”</p><p>By now, Sakura knows what he’s planning. “That would’ve made me eleven years old.”</p><p>If Sasori is surprised by her age, he doesn’t let it show. “Perhaps too old for human experimentation, but old enough to be of use to rogue shinobi in other ways.”</p><p>Sakura blanches at Sasori’s words, and even his expression twists into one of distaste at the notion.</p><p>“As a last resort, then.” He decides when she merely stares at him wide-eyed. “Even amongst shinobi, it should get you some sympathy.”</p><p>Sakura swallows and shakes off the last of her shock.</p><p>“Yeah, okay.” She agrees, not recognising her own voice. “Have you got a Bingo Book?” she asks, just to get her mind off the topic.</p><p>Sasori tilts his head at the non-sequitur before his eyes widen minutely and he regards her with something akin to respect. Sakura knows she should be alarmed at how easily he catches on to her train of thought, but she’s still trying to wrap her mind around the events of the last few minutes.</p><p>“Not currently with me.” Suddenly, Sasori gets to his feet and begins sealing the miscellaneous tid-bits strewn around him into a scroll. “Come.” He beckons simply, and Sakura shakily gets to her feet.</p><p>Sasori leads her to one of the rock formations, only stopping when Sakura staggers as her head swims. <em>Chakra depletion. Right. </em></p><p>“Here,” Sasori offers, holding out a tiny box, waiting silently until Sakura regains her balance and blinks the black spots from her vision, “chakra pills.”</p><p>Hesitantly, Sakura takes one, glancing up at Sasori briefly before popping it in her mouth and swallowing. It takes a few seconds, but then she feels a boost of chakra so strong and sudden she gasps. Yet she can’t deny the results, and though it only replenishes her reserves by about a third, it’s still a third more than she had before, and she shoots the redhead a small smile.</p><p>“Thanks.” She murmurs, getting a nod in return before Sasori turns his attention back to the rock. He flashes through a few seals and presses his hand against the closest one, and Sakura watches as a drawing of a tiny red scorpion blooms where his palm was once he takes his hand away, before a web of chakra spiders out from the centre of what she realises is a <em>seal, </em>and the rock moves aside, revealing a furnished cave within.</p><p>Sasori steps in, dropping his scroll onto what she realises is a makeshift workbench, and goes around the cave, pulling things out from secret compartments and natural shelves. Sakura follows him in, looking around curiously – bypassing the fact that it’s a <em>hollow in a slab of rock, </em>the cave is surprisingly…homey. She glances at Sasori, wondering just what it says about his life within the Village walls that the grandson of an esteemed Elder has made a <em>cave</em> look <em>lived-in</em>.</p><p>“What are you doing?” she asks at last when Sasori assembles what appears to be a miscellaneous pile of items next to a charred circle in the ground.</p><p>“The nights are cold in the desert, and I have to head back to the Village.” He looks her up and down, the corner of his mouth quirking infinitesimally upwards. “Unless you <em>want</em> to be executed or freeze if you choose to loiter?”</p><p>Instead of deigning that with a reply, Sakura takes a closer look at what Sasori has assembled: a few branches and acorns, a rolled-up blanket and a few airtight packets she assumes contain some form of rations.</p><p>Surprised and more than a little touched, she turns to Sasori.</p><p>“What do you gain from this?” she asks, and he must notice the change in her tone because he stills and turns to face her. “Honestly?”</p><p>Sasori eyes her for a second, considering, then sighs.</p><p>“I already told you. A break from the monotony.” He turns his back on her and heads towards the mouth of the cave, pausing just before he steps outside. “But…what I would hope to gain from this, if I entertained the notion of favours…would be a promise.”</p><p>Sakura narrows her eyes, immediately on-guard, but nods for Sasori to continue.</p><p>“When Sunagakure has nothing more to offer me, and the time will come for me to leave, I’ll need your help.” He looks over his shoulder, his silhouette outlined by the setting sun, and there’s just enough light to illuminate the edge of madness in his amber eyes and the wicked smirk pulling at his lips. “I’ll need your help to kill my grandmother and the Sandaime Kazekage.”</p><p>Sakura freezes, stunned speechless, and he walks out of the cave, the wall closing behind him, though not before he adds, “If you’re still here when I come back tomorrow, I’ll take that as your answer.”</p>
<hr/><p>Sakura barely sleeps for the first part of the night.</p><p>Although the small fire she manages to get going and Sasori’s blanket are enough to ward off the worst of the unforgiving desert cold, her thoughts refuse to slow down.</p><p>Somehow, she’s over two decades in the past. If she’s right, having only Sasori’s relative age to base her guesses on, the Third Shinobi War is yet to happen, though the political tensions are likely already there. Sarutobi Hiruzen is still in his first term as Hokage, the Yondaime only ascending to the post after the war. The Uchiha Clan is still alive. The Kyuubi hasn’t attacked the Village yet. None of her classmates, or the Rookie Nine have been born yet. Kami above, <em>Kakashi</em> is probably younger than she was when she graduated the Academy right now.</p><p>Weirdest of all, Akasuna no Sasori is <em>helping</em> her.</p><p>And…she’s genuinely considering helping <em>him</em>.</p><p>Chiyo was old when she met the woman, riddled with grief and regrets. She all but admitted to being what drove Sasori out of the Village. She sealed the Ichibi in Gaara using a storage seal. And Sakura doesn’t know enough about the Sandaime Kazekage to care about him either way, and she’s seen and done too much during her War to be able to take the moral high ground in this situation.</p><p>Then, as if working that out settles her, she succumbs to sleep.</p>
<hr/><p>When Sakura wakes up, she feels more rested than she has in <em>months</em>.</p><p>Then, she becomes aware of another presence in the cave and her momentary relaxation vanishes in a blink. She tenses and rolls from her lying position into a ready crouch, hand snapping out for the kunai she stashed by her bedroll.</p><p>Then, her eyes fall on red hair, amber eyes, and a single, raised eyebrow, and she tries to tell her muscles to relax, but even at 12, Sasori still triggers her fight or flight instinct, so it turns into a silent battle between her mind  and her body.</p><p>They eye each other up for a few seconds, silent, then Sasori’s raised eyebrow lowers and a tiny smile – surprised, if she’s reading him well – quirks his lip instead.</p><p>“I really didn’t expect you to stay, Sakura-san.” He says, and it’s as if that’s what her body needs to get with the programme and unfreeze, and she lets herself drop from her crouch and onto her butt, switching from gripping the kunai with desperate fingers to twirling it idly around by the ring at the top. </p><p>“I don’t know your grandmother.” Sakura lies, pretty sure Sasori had expected her to balk at the prospect of treating assisted homicide as a ‘favour'.</p><p>“And the kagecide doesn’t bother you?” Sasori asks, an if Sakura suspected him to be surprised before, he’s definitely surprised now.</p><p>She shrugs.</p><p>“Don’t know him, either.” She admits, and this time it’s the truth. Apart from the Sandaime’s Iron Sand she’d become unfortunately acquainted with when it was doing its level best to tear her apart back in that cave, she doesn’t know anything about him.</p><p>“Do you think you could kill him?” she asks, because Sasuke had some lofty dreams at twelve, but killing one’s brother and killing a Kage are two vastly different concepts, even if said brother was S-Rank at the time.</p><p>“Currently, no.” Sasori says, and there’s none of the embarrassment, none of the bluster that Sakura would’ve expected of a boy his age at the idea of not being able to do something. “But in two, three years? And with your assistance? I think I’d have a ninety-percent chance of success.”</p><p>Sakura’s eyebrows soar.</p><p>“That’s a lot of confidence in my skill level.” She observes, ill-at-ease. She’s not used to being treated like a threat.</p><p>Sasori’s eyebrows mirror hers.</p><p>“I had a suspicion yesterday, but this morning just confirms it.” He tells her flatly. “Even now, when you’re unconsciously suppressing your chakra, you have the reserves of a high-chunin.”</p><p>Surprised at his words, Sakura’s innate control slips and her chakra flares momentarily before she hastily smothers it back down, and Sasori just looks smug.</p><p>“As I thought. You’ve got the reserves of a seasoned jounin and you’re a <em>woman</em>.” Sakura isn’t sure she likes his tone, but Sasori must realise because he explains, even though his lip curls down with impatience. “You’re at a biological disadvantage, yet your coils don’t reflect that.”</p><p>Sakura’s mind races. She never thought she had particularly large reserves; her skill was always control. But… maybe, just maybe, that stemmed from her backdrop. Sasuke, the second son of a Noble Clan, Naruto, a literal jinchuuriki with Uzumaki heritage on top of that, Kakashi, S-Ranked across the Nations even with the veritable leech in his skull that was the Sharingan constantly gnawing on his chakra, and Tsunade, a Sannin. A quick probe into Sasori’s coils – suppressed, like her own – and then deeper, because she knows how to, reveals reserves only about half the size of her own. Interesting.</p><p>Still –</p><p>“Raw power isn’t everything.” She says, a tad defensively, but it has the opposite effect; Sasori brightens.</p><p>“I agree. But <em>healing</em> was the first thing you mentioned when I asked about your specialisations. That’s power and <em>control</em>.”</p><p>Sakura scrutinises him for a few seconds, eyes narrowed and trying to discern whether he’s truly being sincere, then she huffs a laugh.</p><p>“Alright. It’s a deal.” She agrees at last, and something in Sasori relaxes, and she realises belatedly that he’s relieved. “We use your alibi. I’m your aunt’s kid, ran away when your parents and aunt were attacked by the White Flash. Then,” she reaches over to her bedroll and rummages around for the Bingo Book, “I was taken by…” she grabs it, flicking to the page she’d dog-eared and presenting the book to Sasori.</p><p>“The Gold and Silver Brothers?” he asks curiously, eyebrow rising.</p><p>There isn’t a photo of the two, but Sakura knows about them from the Bingo Book of her own time, remembers reading reports about an ANBU team springing the traps around their hide-out a year before the War.</p><p>“Do you know anything about them?” Sasori checks, and she nods.</p><p>“I know enough.” Sakura replies vaguely, noting the downwards twitch of Sasori’s lip. “They were swallowed alive by the Kyuubi and survived by eating its flesh. They have jinchuuriki-level chakra. And they have a hideout near the northern border of Iwa.”</p><p>“I suppose it would be easier to justify why it took you six years to make your escape.” Sasori muses, and Sakura’s once again floored by how easily he follows her thought process.</p><p>“Precisely.” She agrees, throat oddly dry.</p><p>“Hm.” Sasori hums. “That’s acceptable. Now, come.”</p><p>When Sakura stays where she is and raises an eyebrow, he scowls, the first signs of that famed impatience showing since she met him yesterday.</p><p>“I am going to teach you puppetry. With your control, it shouldn’t take longer than a fortnight.” He explains.</p><p>“I don’t have a puppet.” Sakura says immediately, then winces at the dumb response. Sasori’s eyebrow climbs up his forehead again.</p><p>“And I’m a puppet-master. That’s easily remedied.” He informs her, dryer than the desert surrounding them. “Now, <em>come</em>. My grandmother is a proud puppet-user, she taught <em>all</em> her children the puppet jutsu, even those that wanted nothing to do with shinobi.”</p><p>Smiling to herself at the ridiculousness of her situation, she follows Sasori out of the cave.</p>
<hr/><p>It takes four days.</p><p>Despite the fact that he was the one to sing her praises about her control and the size of her reserves, all Sasori can do when she successfully stretches her strings out to ten metres and makes her puppet flow through the first defensive kata Tsunade had taught her, is blink owlishly.</p><p>In a move eerily reminiscent of the last few seconds of his life in his puppet body, his head turns almost mechanically to look away from her puppet and stare at her, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.</p><p>Then, not even five seconds later, he shakes himself off and lobs two scrolls at her.</p><p>“Ninjutsu.” He elaborates wordlessly, and Sakura wonders whether she’s rubbing off on him; he’s surprisingly talkative, and she’s only seen his temper flare when she’s been intentionally difficult about three times so far. “Every Sand-nin is either Wind or Earth-inclined. Even those whose primary Nature is Suiton learn these.”</p><p>Sakura unfurls the Wind scroll and frowns, but the Earth one is familiar.</p><p>“I know this one!” she declares brightly, rolling the scroll back up.</p><p>The <em>Hiding Like a Mole </em>technique is as familiar to her as breathing, and Kakashi’s abuse of the jutsu during the handful spars they’d had before the War meant that she’d eventually caved and learnt the damn thing.</p><p>Then, she realised why he liked it so much.</p><p>“Demonstrate.” Sasori says simply, and Sakura does so without further prompting. She only needs half the suggested seals due to her control and the fact that her secondary nature is Earth, but she doesn’t account for the lessened density of the sand beneath her feet compared to the ground back in Konoha and she doesn’t lower herself down so much as <em>sink</em>.</p><p>Once she reduces the chakra flow, moving beneath the ground is like swimming with a weighted vest – far faster and smoother than she’s used to, but she still has to move against some resistance. She swims around some, then concentrates and looks for Sasori’s chakra, heading over and quickly breaching the surface with her hand to tap him lightly on the ankle before disappearing again and remerging from the ground a few metres to his left.</p><p>There’s a hint of a smile on Sasori’s face and he nods once, apparently satisfied, and Sakura <em>doesn’t</em> preen, she’s long since gotten out of the teacher’s-pet habits, but-</p><p>“Have you ever thought about teaching?” She blurts out before she can stop herself, and Sasori’s eyebrows soar.</p><p>“Excuse me?” in anyone else, the words that tumble out of his mouth would’ve been ‘<em>what the fuck’ </em>but apparently, the redhead’s restraint is just that great even at twelve.</p><p>“I think you’d be a good teacher.” Sakura rephrases her question, then elaborates at his incredulous look. “You’re thorough and patient, and you praise success.”</p><p>“I don’t have the patience for the average shinobi and I will <em>not</em> suffer fools.” He shoots back with a scowl, but Sakura’s undeterred.</p><p>“Then don’t.” she replies with a shrug. “You’re a jounin, aren’t you? The best puppet master of your generation? I’m not saying you should take a genin team immediately, but an apprentice of your choosing? Wouldn’t that interest you?”</p><p>Sasori narrows his eyes at her, and if Sakura once thought that Sasuke looked older than his years when they were genin, the only thing cluing her into the fact that Sasori is, in fact, a teen, is his physical appearance.</p><p>“Most of the villagers fear me.” He says at last, and Sakura suddenly understands the furnished cave and the lack of anyone looking for the boy.</p><p>“I’d hazard that they fear your potential. What you could do, with enough motivation.” Then, she quirks a wry smile. “Like, say, kagecide.”</p><p>Sasori hums thoughtfully. “Assuaging their fears by taking a student would give them a false sense of security and would make it easier for me to carry out my plan.” He muses, and Sakura’s momentarily thrown by the connection, then sighs.</p><p>Apparently, Sasori is more set than he let show on the idea of killing the Sandaime.</p><p>
  <em>What have I gotten myself into?</em>
</p><p>“I will consider your suggestion.” Sasori allows at last, and the fact that the thoughtfull crease between his brows proves his words to be true. “Now, let’s focus on that Wind jutsu.”</p>
<hr/><p>Two weeks after her arrival to the Land of Wind, Sasori is sent on a double mission, both solo, one to the still-unstable Amegakure, and one to the Wastelands between the Land of Earth and Wind. Sakura frowns when she learns of the destinations and scrutinises Sasori’s seemingly unruffled façade. He doesn’t seem to find it to be anything out of the ordinary, but there’s a tiny frown creasing his brows, and Sakura’s familiar enough with the redhead’s expressions by this point to draw her own conclusions.</p><p>“They don’t expect you to come back, do they.” She says, more statement than question, and something in her gut twists when Sasori merely smiles humourlessly.</p><p>“But I will.” He tells her simply, then reaches into his pack and presents her with a rolled-up scroll marked with the same scorpion of the cave she’s been staying in. “I expect you to be competent with this by the time I come back. His name is Karasu. Treat him well.”</p><p>And as he sets off with no formal farewell, Sakura unfurls the scroll and freezes once the puppet appears. It’s <em>Kankuro’s</em> Karasu.</p><p>But she’s always been a diligent student, so by the time Sasori makes it back a week and a half later, a little sunburnt and dusty, but looking largely unharmed, she’s almost figured out all of Karasu’s tricks.</p><p>“Good.” Sasori acknowledges simply, settling heavily on the stone in the alcove they’ve taken to training in, and Sakura notices the wince he doesn’t quite manage to stifle. “Here.”</p><p>She catches two sachets of what she realises belatedly is hair dye and shoots the redhead an amused smile, but she puts the dye aside and makes her way over to him instead.</p><p>She holds out green-lit hands like a peace-offering and the teen sighs but nods obligingly. Twenty seconds later, she’s knitted up the hastily-patched gash on his abdomen and brought down the fever she suspects was caused by his foray into Amegakure and purged the traces of poison from his lungs and bloodstream.</p><p>“Were you chasing down missing-nin?” she asks curiously and Sasori jerks under her hands before she takes them away, amber eyes narrowing dangerously.</p><p>“What makes you say that?”</p><p>“There’s poison in your lungs and around the wound in your stomach. Low-level, likely plant-based, so either someone who doesn’t fully know what they’re doing or doesn’t have enough resources for the chemical stuff. Suna is renowned for poison, so…” she trails off, and Sasori closes his eyes and sighs.</p><p>“Yes.” He says simply, the corner of his mouth curling with distaste. “A chunin and a jounin. They stole some important artefacts when they defected, and were smart enough to split up after leaving our borders.”</p><p>“A hunter-nin mission and they sent <em>one teen jounin</em>?!” Sakura asks incredulously, eyes wide, and she realises with a jolt that the indignation she feels, the concern is <em>for</em> Sasori.</p><p>Because he could’ve been <em>killed</em>. And his Village wouldn’t have <em>cared</em>.</p><p>“There is a reason the villagers fear me.” Sasori just sighs, though the look in his eyes is softer than she’s used to, and Sakura can’t quite stop the hand that reaches out and lightly ruffles her hair, despite the fact that the teen freezes under her touch.</p><p>“Whenever you bleed the Village dry of everything useful it can give you, come find me. I’ll help you do what you must.” She tells him simply, and he must notice the change in wording because he turns and looks at her with slightly widened eyes.</p><p>“And where will I be able to find you?” he asks eventually, the shock still visible on his face but not as obvious.</p><p>Sakura smiles. <em>Was that ever a question in the first place?</em></p><p>“Konoha.”</p>
<hr/><p>Two months after landing in the past, and three weeks after Sasori returned from his mission and a week after he went to the Kazekage with the request for a student, Sakura stumbles to her knees, less than half a kilometre from the Main Gates of Konohagakure.</p><p>She decided to go all-out when she left Sasori, raiding a small shop in one of the villages she passed through in the Land of Rivers for civilian clothing. After that, it was the case of putting in a few artificial rips and tears, rubbing against trees, dipping liberally in mud-puddles and working grass into the material until it stained at the knees and elbows.</p><p>Her body is littered with a myriad of small injuries, some self-inflicted and incompletely healed, others from creatures she’d intentionally allowed to get too close, a burn here, a bruise there.</p><p>Overall, last time she’d glimpsed her reflection in the stream, she looked rough. She could only hope her chakra would make her look like rough-after-escaping-captivity-shinobi rather than a beggar.</p><p>But as it is, she drops to her hands and knees on the dirt path leading to the Village because she feels three chakra signatures moving in the trees about half a kilometre behind her, and this way, assuming they don’t try to kill her on first sight, she’ll have an even easier pass into the Village than trying to bank on her helpless-and-hard-done image.</p><p>“Namikaze, I swear to god-!” an irritated voice reaches her ears seconds before she feels feet hit the ground a few metres to her left.</p><p>She curls up slightly, the tensing of her muscles not entirely faked, and the figure moves closer.</p><p>“Excuse me, are you alright?” she hears a deep, yet undeniably kind voice ask, and she unfurls from her protective position and peers up at the shinobi, seeing him wince slightly in sympathy at her dirtied, scratched face and wide-eyes.</p><p>Blond hair, cerulean blue eyes, a slight tan, and the Konoha jounin uniform. Blond that spills over the headband around his forehead in jagged, though soft-looking spikes, and when she meets his eyes, he sends her a hesitant smile, offering her a hand up.</p><p><em>Oh, shit. </em>Sakura thinks absently as she accepts the hand and lets him pull her to her feet, making sure to sway a little, then runs a hand through her dyed-maroon hair to push the bangs away from her forehead, no doubt smearing dirt in them, but it’s worth it when the blonde’s eyes zero in on the diamond on her forehead and his eyes widen, though the warm smile doesn’t falter even as his eyes grow cold and calculating. <em>Oh, shit.</em></p><p><em>Naruto’s dad is </em>hot<em>.</em></p><p>Then, her eyes fall on a wild-looking kunoichi, her hair a mane, and the upside-down scarlet triangles on her cheeks only accentuating her eyes framed in that same shade, her lips pulled back in a scowl and a ferocious glare aimed right at Minato, before it falls to her, and Sakura's brain turns to goo.</p><p><em>Oh, no. She's hot </em>too<em>.</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. familiar faces</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi hey hello y'all! i am alive and slowly getting through my WIPs and updating them, so! have some 8k of worldbuilding and banter.</p><p>sakura's outfit is based on THIS piece of art by @jadenitetk12 on tumblr which has been living inside my head rent-free since i saw it : https://jadenitetk12.tumblr.com/post/187581325040/character-swap-haruno-sakura-as-uchiha-madara</p><p>and minato's character is based on Deja Vu no Jutsu by Vixen_Tail because it's hands-down the best fic i've ever found dealing with konoha's 3rd gen and i thoroughly recommend it if you have a week to spare to get through it</p><p>(to those who have read my story 'cut the head off the snake', have a nice sarutobi for once! i  can write him as not-a-bastard, i promise!</p><p>also, i love kakashi, despite literally never showing it in my writing. but kid-kakashi was a FUCK, so we're knocking him down a few pegs early on, and then he's getting a redemption arc and ON GOD we're getting the boy some therapy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Minato stares at the girl once he helps her to her feet, a million thoughts running through his head.</p><p>That is undoubtedly the <em>Byakugou</em> diamond on her forehead, but as far as he’s concerned – and according to Jiraiya – it’s so difficult as a technique that only <em>two</em> people in the world have ever managed to master it.</p><p>What, then, is it doing on a girl covered in bruises, grime, and dried blood, and looking easily five years Minato’s junior?</p><p>“What-?” he starts, noting the girl’s wide-eyed gaze as she glances from him to Tsume and back again, a flush on her cheeks which Minato attributes to a fever due to her desperate, hard-done appearance, but Tsume cuts him off.</p><p>“Who’re you?” she demands sharply, dark eyes narrowed, squaring her shoulders and getting into the girl’s space, Kuromaru growling quietly beside her. “What are you doing on Konoha’s doorstep?”</p><p>Minato inwardly despairs. <em>Tsume…</em></p><p>But, when his eyes flick back to the girl, she looks more curious than intimidated, staring openly at Tsume’s mouth.</p><p>“Are your canines naturally that sharp, or do you file them like the Mist-nin do?” she asks suddenly, with an almost child-like innocence. </p><p>Her head is tilted in a way that strikes Minato as cat-like, but then her words actually register in his brain and he snorts a laugh, hand flying up to cover his mouth but he’s too late. Tsume’s already heard him, and her completely thrown, baffled expression at the girl’s words shifts into a glare as she turns to snarl at him.</p><p>“But, to answer your question.” the girl continues, drawing their attention back onto her, and inadvertently saving Minato from getting gutted by sharp claws, a fact she apparently realises because she shoots him a vaguely amused look before sobering.</p><p>“My name is Sakura. I was born to a Suna expat, then kidnapped and held in captivity for six years once my mother was killed. I escaped last month.”</p><p>Minato takes a moment to absorb that, looking at the girl’s appearance in a new light, and he thinks he sees Tsume wince slightly in regret, likely at her earlier gruff approach.</p><p>“Why Konoha?” Minato queries, wondering whether this shouldn’t be something for T&amp;I to handle.</p><p>But then he thinks back to when she’d said ‘held in captivity’ and he looks at the girl’s torn, muddied, and wrong-sized clothes, studies the way she won’t meet their eyes, tilting her head so her bangs shadow her face, notes the way her hands nervously clasp her elbows and decides <em>no. </em></p><p>For all that he respects T&amp;I and knows that a lot of their reputation is intentional propaganda that’s carefully exported outside of Konoha’s borders and dropped like breadcrumbs for other nations to find, he doesn’t trust them with this. At least, not until the Sandaime makes it an order he won’t be able to refuse.</p><p>The girl shifts, smiles slightly, almost to herself, then chances a quick look at Minato before averting her eyes.</p><p>“My seal dropped me off in Wind, but my mother was a Suna-nin who ran away because she didn’t want to be a shinobi. I…would not have been welcomed in her homeland.”</p><p>Minato’s snaps to attention; <em>seal?</em></p><p>“I was held by Kumo rogues, near Kumo. I want as little to do with that nation as possible. I considered Ame but…” she shudders, and Minato sympathises – from what little Jiraiya has told him, that reaction is <em>more </em>than justified.</p><p>“Besides, my captors hated Konoha, never had a good word to say about it, so…that’s as good a motivation as any.” She adds finally, a vicious edge in her eyes that clearly startles Tsume, but then she blinks, and the expression is gone, only grief and fatigue left when she glances up at Minato, expectant.</p><p>Minato swallows, trades a glance with Tsume, but the other woman is about as easy to read as a <em>wall</em>, so he thinks of Jiraiya, of Kakashi, of his baby no-longer-genin, of darling Obito-kun, and squares his shoulders.</p><p>“Well, that’s good enough for me.” He declares, ignores Tsume’s exasperated sigh, and smiles invitingly at the newly-named Sakura. “Let’s see if it’s good enough for Hokage-sama.”</p><p>Sakura brightens, a hopeful smile lighting up her face, and then, in a move that startles Minato, holds out her hands to him, wrists together, clearly expectant, but of <em>what, </em>he has no idea.</p><p>Tsume turns away, muttering curses under her breath and gagging, and it’s only when Sakura’s tiny smile dims slightly and she lifts her wrists meaningfully that Minato gets with the programme, and promptly pales.</p><p>“I am <em>not </em>handcuffing you, Sakura-san.” He manages to croak out, mentally slapping himself over the head when he remembers that she was held in <em>captivity for six years, dear lord. </em></p><p>Sakura just blinks at him, turns to Tsume in confusion, and the Inuzuka sighs noisily and offers her first sympathetic look since their introduction.</p><p>“We don’t do that around here, kid.” She explains gruffly, not meeting the other girl’s eyes. “’Specially not to refugees.”</p><p>“Oh.” Sakura murmurs, and her smile grows a bit when she seems to realise it wasn’t <em>her </em>they had such a strong reaction to, before she appears to try to control herself a bit and adds; “Not that I’m not grateful, but…you’re thinking of bringing me to your leader, right? Don’t you want some kind of assurance that I, I don’t know, <em>won’t </em>go berserk or something?”</p><p>Minato blinks, sees the exact moment the realisation that Sakura is <em>right </em>hits Tsume, and wants to smack his head against the nearest wall for the second time that day.</p><p>“I could…seal your chakra? Temporarily?” he offers, trading a look with Tsume who nods encouragingly, then turns back to Sakura. “If you consent?”</p><p>And Sakura almost looks like she wants to roll her eyes, but instead, she just smiles a little wider and merely lifts her arms for the third time.</p><p>“I consent.” She assures him, as if aware he wants to hear it, and Minato sighs with relief and gets to work.</p><hr/><p>Sakura can’t quite believe that her and Sasori’s madman’s plan actually <em>worked. </em>She stuck to the script they’d come up nearly word-for-word, praised the heavens for landing her with the <em>Yondaime</em> as the shinobi to find her, because the man appears to have just enough of Naruto in him to make manipulating him <em>piss easy. </em></p><p>Sakura played up the helpless victim, didn’t miss the spark of interest when she dropped the breadcrumb about her ‘seal’, and within half an hour of landing on her knees by Konoha’s Gates, she’s in the Hokage’s office, Minato at her side, repeating the same tale she wove for Minato, only with a few added details, purely for Sarutobi’s benefit.</p><p>The Professor is silent through her explanation, and Minato is more of the shinobi who became the youngest Hokage in history and the bogeyman of Iwagakure than the young adult who found her at the Gates, quiet and serious and attentive beside her.</p><p>Finally, Sarutobi puffs his pipe and asks: “You said you used experimental fuinjutsu to get out?”</p><p>Sakura nods. "Yes, sir."</p><p>"’Experimental’ how?" he presses, and Sakura rakes a hand through her hair and fakes wry amusement, reciting what she’d mocked up with Sasori.</p><p>"Experimental in that I had no guarantee of it working, but even ending up spliced across the Nations would've been an improvement to the cells." She replies, feels more than sees Minato wince at her side, and even the Sandaime looks apologetic, though it doesn’t stop him from saying:</p><p>"My sympathies you had to encounter such a situation so young. Yet you must understand, even our fuinjutsu <em>experts</em> have yet to master international space-time manipulation." </p><p>Sakura feels like she’s treading in dangerous waters, and offers carefully, neutrally: "When I used it, it <em>depleted</em> my reserves."</p><p>Because it <em>had, </em>in a way. Whatever Kaguya did that ended in Sakura being yanked from her time and thrown over twenty years in the past had <em>depleted </em>her reserves in a way she hadn’t experienced since she was just starting under Tsunade’s tutelage.</p><p>Sarutobi waves her off. "Oh, I'm not thinking of <em>using</em> it, child. But Minato here is one of those <em>experts</em> I mentioned. Would you be willing to let him have a look at it?"</p><p>Sakura shoots Minato a meaningful look, though it’s not as if that knowledge is new to her.</p><p>"I'd have to draw it again." She says simply.</p><p>A puff of smoke and Minato unseals a blank scroll and an ink stone and holds it out to her meaningfully. Getting the '<em>do it then</em>' loud and clear, despite neither the blond nor the Hokage uttering a word, she sighs and drops down to sit cross-legged, the scroll spread in front of her. </p><p>She glances up at the future Yondaime and decides that two can play the read-between-the-lines game; "Are you interested in the process as well, or just the end result?" </p><p>Minato huffs, but it sounds more amused than insulted, and obligingly makes his way to stand at her side, and she gets to work without further delay.</p><p>She feels more than hears Minato's startle when she starts from the outside in, and has to stifle a smirk. Unorthodox though it may be from what little she knows of <em>proper </em>fuinjutsu, but Naruto has proven time and time again that following the rules isn't the only way to get results.</p><p>She finishes the makeshift array within five minutes and glances up at Minato, who has yet to fully regain his composure.</p><p>"Well, Minato-kun?" The Sandaime asks quietly, and though he sounds patient, he also doesn't sound like he's holding out hope. "Could it work?"</p><p>"I..." Minato hesitates, shooting an unreadable glance at Sakura before turning to his kage. "I cannot say for certain without a test run, but on paper, I believe it absolutely could."</p><p>Even Sarutobi seems shocked.</p><p>"Don't get me wrong, Hokage-sama, it's the most unorthodox potluck of a seal I've ever seen. It seems like a mishmash of the reverse summoning seal, a storage seal, a chakra compression seal and something...<em>medical</em>? all held together with sheer stubbornness."</p><p>He seems to realise what he's said when Sakura stifles a snort, and flushes.</p><p>"I mean, uh, the <em>will</em> of the user plays a large part in whether a seal is successful, only this one seems to almost <em>rely</em> on willpower rather than use it as a supplement." </p><p>Another glance from the blond, and this time, the Hokage is looking at her too, so Sakura shrugs in the most modest way she can manage. </p><p>"Even when I had nothing, I had hope." She explains simply, and that, more than anything else, seems to finally win the Sandaime over, for he smiles kindly.</p><p>“Well, then, Sakura-san. As is par the course for the refugees we take in, you will be offered a citizenship and a place of your own in the next few weeks, but I can’t help but ask: you’ve proven yourself capable of fuinjutsu, a strong will, and a steady head on your shoulders. Would you wish to become a <em>shinobi</em> of the Leaf, as well as its citizen?”</p><p>Minato visibly startles at that, and Sakura herself can’t quite hide her surprise, though, <em>war times, </em>she reminds herself.</p><p>“You don’t have to decide now.” Sarutobi hastens to reassure her when it appears she’s been silent for too long. “But, with times being what they were, and fuinjutsu specialists being a rarity, I couldn’t not ask.”</p><p>“I- of course, Hokage-sama.” Sakura cuts him off, though not impolitely. “I would love to.” She replies honestly, and the Sandaime nods.</p><p>“Then I’ll give you two weeks to settle in, and then call some of my shinobi to test you and see what rank would suit you best. For the time being, you’ll be staying w-!”</p><p>But before the Sandaime can finish, the door to his office swings open and a very familiar figure sweeps into the room, making Sakura <em>tense </em>in a way she hadn’t even upon coming across <em>Sasori</em>.</p><p>"Sarutobi-sensei." Orochimaru greets cooly, and everyone freezes, Sakura included.</p><p>“Orochimaru.” Sarutobi sighs, but he sounds more like an exasperated parent than a leader chastising insubordination, and Sakura is oddly reminded of the way Tsunade treated Naruto. “Need I remind you of the virtue of knocking?”</p><p>Orochimaru scoffs, and the action is so <em>Sasuke </em>that Sakura feels something in her <em>ache. </em></p><p>But then, Orochimaru shifts, and her eyes narrow, the ice-cold claws of terror loosening their grip around her lungs as her mind quickly processes what her eyes catalogue.</p><p>"You're injured." She observes, the words ripped out of her without her consent, drawing the Sannin's full attention onto herself, as well as Minato’s wide eyes and the Sandaime’s curious ones, but she ignores them all.</p><p>Despite the part of her brain responsible for her self-preservation <em>screaming </em>about how much of a <em>bad idea </em>what she’s about to do is, she steps closer to the man who starred in her nightmares for years after her Chunin Exams, before she met even worse monsters and her dreams changed accordingly.</p><p>As it is, she absently allows her hand to light up mint-green and looks up at the Snake Sannin with her medic’s professionalism falling over her face like a mask.</p><p>"With your permission?" She asks perfunctorily, meeting those unsettling golden eyes unflinchingly. </p><p>(she remembers Kakashi, his Mangekyo spinning lazily, remembers Sasuke, always <em>angry</em> and impatient and glaring with red, <em>red</em> eyes, remembers countless shinobi she’s stared down then healed, she remembers a goddess that she punched in the face. She will not, she <em>cannot</em>, flinch here.)</p><p>So she doesn’t.</p><p>She’s <em>Tsunade’s student, </em>goddamnit.</p><p>A monster in her timeline Orochimaru may have been, but here, apart from clear scorn for Minato and grudging respect for Sarutobi, his eyes lack the glint of cruel madness she remembers from her few encounters with the man <em>before</em>.</p><p>He nods mutely, eyes not leaving hers even as she slowly reaches out and lays her hand on his exposed wrist, the skin cool and clammy beneath her touch, and she wonders what he’s taking to fight the fever of infection. Doubtless something self-made, because with Tsuande gone, Sakura doubts the hospital is anywhere near equipped or funded well enough to manufacture the pills she remembers from her time.</p><p>Still, she banishes the thought and sends her healing chakra through Orochimaru’s whole body, mending random aches and pains until she happens upon the infected and still-bleeding wound in his side that would’ve incapacitated a lesser shinobi, and sets about repairing that.</p><p>All of ten seconds later, once she's stopped the bleeding, burned out the infection, sealed the wound and all but dissolved any potential scar tissue, she steps away, job done.</p><p>Orochimaru's eyes gain an intrigued glint, but he stays silent until Sarutobi clears his throat.</p><p>“Yes, Orochimaru?” he asks tiredly, bringing the Sannin’s attention back to whatever had first caused him to barge into the Hokage’s office. “Was there anything you needed?”</p><p>“Just to report that one of my informants found the hideout of the Gold and Silver brothers.” Orochimaru relays, those unsettling golden eyes flickering from the Hokage to the window, his entire countenance radiating boredom.</p><p>“Oh?” Sarutobi sits up straighter, his gaze flitting to Sakura, and she closes her eyes, knowing what will come next and almost dreading it.</p><p>“Mm. They’re dead.” Orochimaru announces flatly. “Poison. Whoever did it turned the area into a biohazard contamination area.”</p><p>“Sakura-san?” Sarutobi addresses her, and Sakura pries her eyes open, absently noting that Orochimaru is now staring at her as well, the slightest of frowns between his brows. “Any insight as to the poison?”</p><p>Sakura takes a deep, steadying breath. <em>All or nothing. Goddamn it, Sasori. </em></p><p>“Burned poison ivy and oleander. And a ricin injection once they were unconscious.” She relays, praying that Sasori stuck to the plan to the letter, otherwise she’s screwed.</p><p>“Orochimaru?” Sarutobi checks again, and Sakura is startled to realise that she hadn’t been <em>wrong </em>in her earlier assessment of the Sandaime as <em>paternal. </em></p><p>“While…excessive, it would be in line with the findings of my informant.” Orochimaru allows, eerie eyes narrowed speculatively.</p><p>“Well then, Sakura-san.” Sarutobi smiles, and Sakura relaxes, reassured by the man’s grandfatherly countenance, the impression only heightened by her memories of her childhood. “As I was saying before Orochimaru appeared, you will be staying with Minato-kun until your citizenship and housing situation are sorted out. I will send for you for your skills assessment as soon as I can gather the necessary shinobi. Minato-kun, you’ll have extra funds added to your mission pay to compensate for housing Sakura-san for the next fortnight. For now, dismissed.”</p><p>Sakura bites her lip, bows respectfully, and carefully restrains herself from letting out a whoop of joy when the doors to the Hokage’s office close behind her.</p><p>
  <em>She did it!</em>
</p><hr/><p>Minato can’t help sneaking glances at Sakura as she walks beside him. He decided to take the shortest route to his apartment, mindful that the girl likely wouldn’t want too many people to see her in her current, rugged state, but she seems unbothered by the people who <em>do </em>glance their way. She is oddly quiet, too, looking around Konoha’s streets with a mix of awe and something that looks like <em>longing, </em>but Minato can’t be sure.</p><p>Still, it’s a relief when they get to his apartment, and he hides the slip of paper Sarutobi passed him when Sakura's back was turned in his pocket, the contents engraved in his brain already: <em>Observe and Report. </em>As they step through the door, he has only the briefest flash of embarrassment when he realises he’s still living in his old chunin flat, with abandoned scrolls, discarded shirts, and empty boxes of takeout strewn around.</p><p>“Right.” He announces once he closes the door behind them, smiling wryly. “I promise I’ll clean that up.” He swears, but Sakura seems unperturbed, and he gets that same impression that she’s distantly amused at the whole situation as he got at the Gates.</p><p>“You can take my room for the next two weeks, I’ll sleep on the sofa. We – or I – can go shopping later, because I <em>have</em> just come from a mission myself and was largely planning on crashing then getting some takeout, so the fridge is probably not in a good state right now.” he winces once he remembers the tomatoes he’d optimistically purchased a week before his mission and abandoned in the fridge.</p><p>This time, Sakura laughs openly, hand flying up to cover her mouth as the other motions for him to continue.</p><p>“I will probably be called in for a debriefing tomorrow, but after we could, um, do some sightseeing? If you want?” he stumbles over himself, but the twinkle of amusement in Sakura’s eyes sets him back on track. “I am going to stop talking now. Is there anything you need that I forgot to mention?”</p><p>“A shower would be nice.” Sakura informs him, wrinkling her nose. “I kinda stink, Minato-san.”</p><p>And Minato blinks-</p><p>-then <em>laughs</em>.</p><p>He slaps a hand over his mouth, eyes wide, aware that if he’d laughed in Tsume or, god forbid, <em>Kushina’s </em>face, he would’ve been a dead man walking, but Sakura just grins at him, and he realises that making him laugh had been her <em>intention. </em></p><p>“A s-shower, right.” He gets out, can feel his cheeks heat up, so he turns on his heel and heads for the bathroom, mainly to prevent his temporary housemate from seeing it.</p><p>He flicks the light on and gestures inside.</p><p>“It’s not much, and the plumbing leaves a lot to be desired, but it <em>does </em>have a shower.” He tells her, sweeping his arm in a way he hopes comes off as grandiose instead of <em>idiotic, </em>and hurries to his bedroom. “Hang on, I’ll get you a towel and some clothes that should fit.”</p><p>By the time he comes back, Sakura has let down her hair, kicked off her guest slippers, and shrugged off her outer jacket, and she pauses once he remerges, her hands stilling where they rest on the hem of her overshirt, as if uncaring of the fact that the door to the bathroom is still wide open, or that he’d clearly said he’d be coming back.</p><p>He wonders whether the apparent shamelessness is a product of being held captive for six years or just an aspect of the girl’s personality he’s going to have to learn to navigate around.</p><p>“Minato-san?” Sakura prompts, and Minato realises he’d frozen in the doorway, his old civvies and a ratty towel clutched in his arms.</p><p>“Uh, here.” He clears his throat and deposits the items in Sakura’s arms, then steps out of the bathroom, screwing his eyes shut. “I’ll fetch us some food while you shower. You must be hungry.”</p><p>He hears fabric fall to the floor and a quiet ‘I could eat’, and then the door to the bathroom falls shut, the lock clicking into place seconds later.</p><p>Minato sighs with relief and opens his eyes, belatedly realising that his stomach is also demanding food.</p><p>Well. What was that restaurant Kushina had been gushing about before he’d left? <em>Ichiraku’s? </em></p><p>He wonders whether they do take-out, too.</p><hr/><p>When Sakura emerges from the bathroom, she feels years younger.</p><p>While most of her ‘injuries’ had been superficial, made to look ten times worse than they actually were, Minato’s shower was the first time she’s had access to <em>actual running water </em>and proper plumbing in almost three months, counting the time she’d spent on the frontlines <em>before.</em></p><p>Clad in what she supposes is Minato’s jounin shirt and a pair of sweats, her dyed-red hair braided and pulled into a loose bun to dry, clean of grime and dried blood and <em>moisturised, </em>she feels the most human she’s felt since waking up in the desert after punching Kaguya.</p><p>But when the smell of ramen reaches her nose, and she spies Minato bent over a scroll spread on his coffee table, slurping noodles from his own bowl, she can’t quite fight the tears that spring to her eyes.</p><p>
  <em>Naruto. Sasuke. Kakashi. Yamato. Sai. Ino. Gonegonegone<strong>gone-!</strong></em>
</p><p>“Sakura-san?” Minato asks, concern radiating from his voice, and then he’s suddenly by her side, scroll and dinner forgotten.</p><p>“It’s okay, breathe, please. Come on, after me.” He coaches quietly, and it takes Sakura longer than it probably should to realise that she’s hyperventilating, frozen in the doorframe leading to the living room.</p><p>Almost as soon as she realises, she sucks in a deep breath, holds it, and bites her lip until she nearly draws blood, grounding herself in the moment.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” She whispers once she lets the breath out, feeling lightheaded and raw but no longer like she’s about to faint. “That was unexpected.”</p><p>“Don’t apologise.” Minato chastises, leading her carefully to the ratty couch and hovering until she sits down, and then almost shoving her ramen bowl into her hands. “Eat. You’ll feel better.”</p><p>Bemused, Sakura obediently starts on her meal, only realising how <em>famished </em>she actually is once gets past the first few bites, after which point she leaves behind any attempt at grace or decorum in favour of scarfing the noodles down at a pace Naruto would’ve been proud of.</p><p>Once she’s finished, she settles back into the couch, sated and clean, if still a bit emotionally fragile.</p><p>“Thanks for dinner, Minato-san.” She murmurs, eyes slipping shut despite her best intentions, feeling inexplicably <em>safe </em>in the Yondaime’s presence.</p><p>“Just Minato is fine.” he corrects, almost automatically, and Sakura cracks an eye open and shoots him an amused half-smile, which dims considerably at his next words. “Do you…want to talk about it?”</p><p><em>No. </em>is Sakura’s immediate response, but not only would it be suspicious as all hell to shoot down Minato’s offer so readily, it would also be rather rude considering how accommodating he’s been.</p><p>She settles for a half-truth instead.</p><p>“I guess I was just thinking about what I lost and what I gained.” she offers with a small shrug, closing her eyes again so she doesn’t see Minato’s expression. “Weighing it up, if you would.”</p><p>“That’ll drive you crazy, Sakura-san.” Minato offers quietly, decidedly not unkindly, but Sakura still snorts, finding the remark <em>hilarious.</em></p><p>“<em>Sakura.</em>” She corrects, because if <em>the future Yondaime can be informal, so can she. </em>“And bold of you to assume I’m not already crazy.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t a crazy person try their best to keep others from finding out they’re crazy?” Minato wonders, and Sakura opens her eyes and shoots him a grin.</p><p>“I dunno, Minato-<em>san</em>, maybe you should ask an actual crazy person.” She advises, and gets a mirror of her grin in response.</p><p>“Mmhm, which is why I asked you, <em>Sakura-san</em>.”</p><p>Sakura can’t help herself – she bursts out laughing.</p><p>When she calms down, Minato is still smiling, but there’s worry in his eyes.</p><p>“I’m sorry. That was too forward, wasn’t it?” he asks cautiously, and Sakura resists the urge to <em>coo</em>.</p><p>“Not at all. I needed a laugh, after the last few weeks.” She waves him off, settling down with a slightly less feral grin on her face.</p><p>They continue the surprisingly easy back-and-forth for a bit longer; Minato wracks her brain about her medical ninjutsu and the seal, she asks about what Konoha’s like and what he’s reading about. They talk until Sakura’s eyes are falling shut every other word and Minato’s gone from sitting on the pouf and leaning forward to sitting on the floor in front of the sofa and leaning back against the coffee table.</p><p>It’s only when Sakura’s eyes stay closed a little too long that Minato seems to deem that the moment to pretend they’re responsible adults and go to bed. He insists again that she take the bedroom, and Sakura decides she’s too tired to argue, and that an actual bed would certainly be an improvement to sleeping in a <em>cave </em>for over a month, or on the front-lines, before that.</p><p>So she gives in, as graciously as she can manage, and is out like a light the moment her head touches the pillow.</p><hr/><p>Minato expects a lot of things when he wakes up the next morning.</p><p>He expects his house to be ransacked. He expects his temporary charge to be missing, having chosen freedom or exile over the terms offered to her by the Sandaime. He expects the girl to be still sleeping, since he is willing to bet she hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep in far too long. He half-expects to not wake up at all, to have his throat slit in the night.</p><p>What he decidedly <em>doesn’t</em> expect is to open his eyes to the sight of Sakura sitting at his breakfast table, maroon hair swept into a messy ponytail, a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of something that smells suspiciously like an omelette resting by the other, attention focused on a book he recognises as belonging to his bookshelf.</p><p>“I was sure I’d ran out of coffee.” He points out in lieu of a greeting, voice hoarse with sleep and bone-deep exhaustion.</p><p>“Mmhm. You had.” She nods, looking far too chipper for whatever o’clock in the morning it currently is, grinning unabashedly at Minato’s disgruntlement.</p><p>He makes a noise he means to say ‘then how is there <em>coffee</em>?’ and almost starts to translate it into a language understandable by other humans, but Sakura must apparently be fluent in sleep-deprived idiot, because she answers the wordless whine without issue.</p><p>“I went to the grocers, duh. Got some coffee and stuff for breakfast. Made some for you, too.”</p><p>Minato blinks, then makes an effort to heave himself into a sitting position. “Money?”</p><p>“Found it in the breadbasket.” She explains without a hint of hesitation, then shoots him a grin. “Honestly, what are you? A housewife preparing for a messy divorce? There’re banks for this precise purpose, Namikaze.”</p><p>Minato blinks again, then manages to get his feet under him and zombie-walks to the table, falling into the seat in front of a plate with a half-cold omelette waiting on it.</p><p>“I don’t remember giving you my surname yesterday.” He notes, and Sakura inclines her head in agreement, taking another sip of coffee, then glares until he obediently shovels some omelette into his mouth. <em>It’s surprisingly good.</em></p><p>“I asked around. I know we don’t know each other that well yet, but I <em>am </em>a ninja.” She shoots back, nose wrinkled in mock-affront, and Minato hums in acknowledgement.</p><p>“Explains how you got in and out of my house without me waking up.” He agrees, and Sakura smiles, small and quick, and goes back to her reading.</p><p>A few minutes pass by in silence, broken only by Sakura getting up to refill her coffee mug and bringing a full one back for Minato on her way to the table, before silence falls around them once again.</p><p>Minato feels more and more awake with every bite and sip he takes, and he wonders whether he should be more weirded out by the strange sense of domesticity around them.</p><p>Probably. He’s known this girl, what, eighteen hours, at most?</p><p>(He’s never been more grateful that Kushina isn’t a Yamanaka or an even weirder telepath.)</p><p>“How old are you?” he blurts out eventually, breaking the idyllic atmosphere and Sakura’s concentration with one dumb question.</p><p>Sakura raises her gaze to him, eyebrow raised almost as if to ask ‘really?’ but Minato decides that he’s made enough of an idiot of himself already, and stubbornly doesn’t take the question back.</p><p>“Seventeen.” She answers at last, and Minato’s brain stalls. “You?”</p><p>“Twenty.” He answers belatedly, wondering why he’s so thrown by her age. “Well, almost.”</p><p>“Aa.”</p><p>The Uchiha-ism is what jars his brain into gear and he finally shakes off the last of the stupor of a <em>really good night’s sleep </em>and asks;</p><p>“Is there anything you want to do today?”</p><p>Sakura appears to consider the question, before answering. “I wouldn’t mind clothes shopping, and some sight-seeing, if you’re amenable. Unless you have other suggestions?”</p><p>“I’m good with that. Might need to bring my team along for the sightseeing part, if you don’t mind. I should probably let them know that I’m alive.”</p><p>“Team?” Sakura echoes, a frown marring her brows, and Minato hastens to explain.</p><p>By the time he gets through a run-down on Kakashi, Obito, and Rin’s unusual circumstances and weirder-than-usual shenanigans, as well as the explanation of ‘I call them my genin team but they’re chunin, really, every one of them is a goddamn overachiever, I mean, Kakashi-kun got promoted at <em>six years old’, </em>both of Sakura’s eyebrows are at her hairline.</p><p>“They’re young, then?” she asks carefully, an odd weight behind her words, and Minato shrugs, downing the rest of his coffee.</p><p>“Kakashi’s freshly eleven. Rin and Obito are a bit older; thirteen and fourteen, I think.”</p><p>“That’s <em>young</em>.” Sakura murmurs, and Minato’s half-convinced she’s thinking out-loud more than talking to him. Then, she seems to shake herself off and smiles at him, grabbing the now-empty plate and coffee mug to take to the sink.</p><p>“So, about that clothes shopping?”</p><hr/><p>Minato’s been shopping with Kushina a few times – exhausting – and with Kushina when she’d dragged <em>Mikoto</em> along, which had been <em>excruciating.</em></p><p>He’s willing to wave his sanity and most of the day good-bye, but Sakura proves to be disturbingly practical; she’s a woman on a mission, not spending any longer in any of the stores than absolutely necessary to get what she needs, and within an hour, they’re done.</p><p>She gets a pair of ninja boots, two pairs of beige leggings, some pyjamas, training shirts and shorts, casual wear and undergarments, and a sweater.</p><p>The part that takes the longest is when she finds a mantle, a bright crimson red, knee-length and high-collared with slits on the sides going up to the hips, the material of a quality Minato knows even the <em>Hyuuga</em> wouldn’t scoff at.</p><p>But what seems to steal Sakura’s attention is the tiny, white circle emblazoned on the material between the collarbones, and she spends long minutes running her fingers over the seemingly-insignificant detail.</p><p>Then, she clears her throat and wipes at her eyes, and dumps two of the overshirts into the basket – one in red and one a shade or two off Uchiha-navy – and Minato very intentionally <em>doesn’t ask</em>.</p><p>When they make it back to his apartment, Sakura sorts her clothes with careful hands, then disappears to the bathroom and emerges clad in the crimson mantle, paired with her beige leggings and over-the-ankle boots, maroon hair in a tight, braided bun at the top of her head, and Minato can’t deny that she <em>looks </em>like a kunoichi. Like <em>Mito, </em>now that he thinks about it, remembers the few photographs of the woman Kushina had shown him, with her hair and the diamond on her forehead and the look on her face that <em>dares </em>anyone to question her.</p><p>“Now, you said something about meeting your team?” she asks, and Minato manages a grin.</p><p>“Oh, yeah. Though I should warn you-!” and the weird atmosphere that had appeared in the last shop disappears as Sakura bursts out laughing at his description of Obito’s latest adventure, and some of the darkness behind Sakura’s eyes fades, replaced with the same distantly-amused expression he’s grown used to over the last day.</p><p>He only hopes introducing her to his kids won’t end in disaster.</p><hr/><p>Getting the news that Minato-sensei was back was enough to essentially make Obito’s day.</p><p>Although he, Kakashi and Rin are all chunin, and do, when they absolutely <em>have</em> to, take missions without their sensei, it still doesn’t feel right, even after almost four years.</p><p>It also doesn’t help that Kakashi’s still an obstinate bastard who adamantly refuses to work with him and Rin, despite how many times Minato-sensei sighs at him about it.</p><p>Still, he’s not prepared for Minato-sensei to appear at their training grounds – and Obito is, for once, <em>earlier </em>than his sensei, and he’s sure both, Rin and Bakashi are similarly baffled at that fact – with <em>company.</em></p><p>The woman – <em>girl? She doesn’t look that much older than him and Rin – </em>is redhaired, and for a moment he thinks it might be Kushina-san, but the look in her eyes wipes that thought from his mind before it has a chance to fully manifest.</p><p>They’re <em>cold, </em>much colder than Kushina or Minato’s, the expression in them assessing and contemplative as it falls on his team, and Obito never really entertained the notion of eyes being the windows to the soul, but here, he reckons that if the metaphor holds true, then the mysterious kunoichi’s windows are closed, the curtains drawn, the shutters bolted shut.</p><p>Her lack of an expression would make Kakashi’s mask obsolete, and Obito swallows, shifts unconsciously closer to Rin for comfort.</p><p>Her outfit only adds to the odd discomfort he’s feeling, because it reminds him a little too much of what the Uchiha founder was always pictured wearing, although the different colour and lack of armour lessen that impression slightly.</p><p>“Rin, Obito, Kakashi, glad to know you survived my absence.” Minato-sensei greets with a smile, and Obito huffs, while Bakashi rolls his eyes at his side but stays silent.</p><p>“I’d like you to meet Sakura; she came to Konoha seeking asylum and will be staying with me for the next few days, so it might be best you get acquainted.”</p><p>“A refugee?” Kakashi asks blandly, eyebrows hiking up. “But there haven’t been any wars recently.”</p><p>“<em>Kakashi-kun!</em>” Rin admonishes, embarrassed and apologetic, but Kakashi remains unbothered.</p><p>But then, the newly introduced Sakura <em>smiles, </em>and Obito feels as if his earlier fears have been completely unfounded, because the expression radiates nothing but warmth and amusement, tinged only slightly with a distant sadness.</p><p>“Pleasure to meet you.” she says in response to Minato-sensei’s introduction, and Obito gets the weirdest impression like she actually <em>means </em>the words. “And it might do you well, Kakashi-kun, to not assume you know everything there is to know about everyone. People may surprise you.”</p><p>Obito blinks.</p><p>Someone…someone just <em>told Kakashi off?!</em></p><p>He glances at Rin and Bakashi, but they appear equally startled at this sudden development.</p><p>Nobody <em>ever </em>tells Kakashi off. Even when he’s out of line or rude or just plain <em>wrong, </em>people always find a way to explain his behaviour, or act like his ‘genius’ justifies him acting like a <em>dick.</em></p><p>Obito’s pretty sure there are hearts in his eyes, but <em>mysterious-refugee-Madara-looking-Sakura-san</em> has just become his favourite person in Konohagakure.</p><p>“How about a spar then?” Minato-sensei cuts in, clearly reading the tension, and the smile he sends them is almost threatening this time. “I’m willing to bet you didn’t even meet up <em>once </em>while I was on my mission.”</p><p>Obito carefully doesn’t make eye-contact, fully aware that their teacher has just hit the nail on the head, but unwilling to be the first one to admit it.</p><p>“What’s your field specialisation?” Kakashi asks suddenly, a propos nothing, and it takes Obito a moment to realise he’s talking to Sakura-san, as if having completely ignored their sensei’s words.</p><p>The kunoichi shoots Minato a loaded look, but graciously answers; “I favour close-combat, but my ‘specialisation’ as such is a medical-ninja.”</p><p>Rin’s jaw drops, and Obito feels happy for his teammate, having heard many a time how difficult the field is and how rare it is to get out of the hospital and onto the battlefield once you start learning the craft.</p><p>Kakashi, however, scoffs.</p><p>“That’s not a real designation.” He dismisses, and Obito watches, in horrid fascination, frozen and unable to get his voice to work to shout and drone the <em>idiot </em>out, stuck merely watching as Kakashi stomps all over Rin’s pride, and, simultaneously, her heart. “Med-nin aren’t field-nin.”</p><p>“What the <em>hell</em>, Bakashi?!” Obito demands, having found his voice in the silence that falls at Kakashi’s declaration. “Rin is <em>literally your teammate!</em>”</p><p>“Rin’s role is support, at best.” Kakashi assesses, and though Obito can see the slight widening of the other boy’s eyes that clues him into the fact that Kakashi <em>knows </em>he’s mis-stepped, the Hatake is too prideful and stubborn to take his words back. “She’s never in the middle of the action.”</p><p>Rin’s hand has flown up to cover her mouth, and her shoulders are tense, her eyes glistening with tears she refuses to shed, and even <em>Minato-sensei </em>looks like his saintly patience has finally ran out, but it’s <em>Sakura-san </em>who speaks.</p><p>“Then how about this, Kakashi-kun.” She offers, and her voice is at once empty, and saccharine-sweet, and Obito <em>knows</em> Kakashi’s not good enough at dealing with actual <em>people</em> to hear the threat and indignation beneath her words. “Spar with me. Just as a warm-up, before you fight Minato and your teammates spar with each other.”</p><p>Kakashi stills, eyes flickering to their sensei, but the blond’s expression is unreadable, and, for once, his clear favouritism towards Kakashi is nowhere to be found.</p><p>“It shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you, boy-genius, especially since I’m just a <em>med-nin.</em>” Sakura coaxes, and <em>oh, </em>she’s <em>pissed, </em>and Minato must realise that too, because he shoots her an alarmed look, but she just waves him off, addressing Kakashi. “Your entire arsenal versus my measly medical ninjutsu. Those are the terms.”</p><p>Kakashi blinks, even as he rises to his feet and settles into an offensive stance. “Medical ninjutsu can’t be weaponised.”</p><p>“Then it’s a good thing that that’s something for <em>me </em>to worry about, hm?” she shoots back, and then Minato says ‘go!’ and the conversation drops.</p><p>Kakashi’s hand flies to his kunai pouch, and he launches a barrage of knives at his opponent, and instead of parrying – and it’s only now that Obito realises she doesn’t have any weapons <em>on her</em>, oh god-! – Sakura <em>dodges.</em></p><p>Obito gapes.</p><p>He’s been on the receiving end of Kakashi’s throws, <em>many times</em>, at that. He knows that the other boy has near-perfect aim, and has, over the years, perfected the art of being a <em>bastard </em>on the battlefield, and the body-parts he targets reflect that.</p><p>But Sakura-san just bends around his kunai, twists and curls her body in a show of flexibility that Obito knows instinctively must’ve been years in the making.</p><p>Then, she snatches two of Kakashi’s knives out of the air and throws them back so they bounce off of each other in mid-air, the ricochet paths sending them through the centre-circle of eight of the ten shuriken Kakashi proceeds to throw.</p><p>Obito doesn’t even want to <em>think</em> about the amount of on-the-spot maths that simple throw must’ve taken. Judging by Rin’s quiet gasp, he already knows it was <em>a lot.</em></p><p>When Kakashi lands, he’s visibly displeased, none of his weapons having so much as <em>grazed </em>Sakura, so he rushes her.</p><p><em>Like an idiot. </em>Obito adds, because <em>he </em>had been paying attention when the redhead had said that she ‘favours close combat’.</p><p>He gets a first-row seat to just <em>what,</em> exactly, the declaration meant, when Sakura not only doesn’t so much as <em>budge</em> at Kakashi’s assault, she also doesn’t seem fazed by his speed, managing to dodge upwards of ninety percent of his hits, and for those she doesn’t dodge, she-!</p><p>“She’s not using chakra to block?” Obito asks rhetorically, the idea seemingly ludicrous because Kakashi <em>packs a punch </em>despite how damn scrawny he is, and once he learnt how to augment his muscles with chakra, he’s never stopped.</p><p>“Seems like it.” Minato-sensei confirms conversationally, and Obito would almost be fooled, if not for the way the blond’s eyes haven’t left the fight since it began.</p><p>“<em>Why</em>?”</p><p>“’A medic must never allow themselves to be without chakra’.” Rin recites robotically, her eyes, for once, not trained on Kakashi.</p><p>(They’re not on Obito either, but he can live with that as long as she stops looking at <em>goddamn Bakashi like he hung the moon.</em>)</p><p>But then, three things happen in quick succession-</p><p>-Kakashi appears to grow tired of Sakura’s game of keep-away, and he spits a gust of fire straight at her face, pausing in his taijutsu assault only long enough to throw a half-seal in front of his mouth.</p><p>Sakura ducks and rolls out of range of the jutsu, but Kakashi’s already disappeared underground, one of his hands reaching up to grab Sakura’s ankle none-too-gently and yank it down, so her foot disappears in the hard-packed dirt of the training ground.</p><p>Once he remerges, with Sakura stuck and unable to dodge, he’s got the chakra-construct of the technique Minato-sensei has been working on for the last few months in his hand.</p><p>It’s not what Minato can manage – and considering that their sensei regularly tells them that he’s <em>nowhere near finished, </em>but that still means that they should definitely <em>not </em>attempt to recreate his experiment –  so Obito knows that whatever Kakashi’s got shouldn’t be too dangerous, but it <em>looks </em>impressive.</p><p>Hell, if Kakashi used it against him, Obito would be getting the hell out of dodge, and he <em>knows </em>that it’s likely little more than pure, concentrated chakra that’s currently in Kakashi’s hand.</p><p>“That stupid, little-!” Minato hisses, rising to his feet, but he’s forcibly cut off by what happens next.</p><p>Sakura makes no attempt to free her foot from Kakashi’s Earth jutsu, apparently taking ‘medical ninjutsu <em>only</em>’ a little too literally, and she lets Kakashi get up-close with his shimmering orb of deadly intent in his hand.</p><p>Only, when Kakashi makes to drive his creation through her right shoulder, she shifts her balance, using her superior height to lean <em>just </em>out of reach, and, with her left hand, jabs her index and middle finger into a point on Kakashi’s exposed forearm.</p><p>And the fledgling, stolen technique-</p><p>-fizzles out of existence.</p><p>“My turn.” Sakura grins sharply, and then she’s ducking, blue-glowing hands swiping first over Kakashi’s calves, then his thighs, then his right shoulder, ending with a final, oddly gentle palm strike to Kakashi’s solar plexus.</p><p>Then Kakashi is dropping, crumbling into a graceless heap at the kunoichi’s feet, his legs twitching uselessly, seemingly refusing to cooperate, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side.</p><p>Sakura bends, leisurely pressing a hand to the hard ground around her feet, and Obito watches as it softens under her palm until she can lift her foot out of the dirt like it’s <em>sand</em>, and he belatedly realises that the kunoichi is completely unscathed while Kakashi is completely <em>immobile</em>, all his best moves thwarted.</p><p>“I think I’m in love.” Rin mumbles at his side, eyes wide and flickering from Sakura to the silver-haired mess on the ground, and Obito can’t even be mad, because <em>hell, </em>he’s a little in love too, after this showing!</p><p>“Sakura?” Minato-sensei checks, snapping all three teenagers out of their reverie, but Sakura just turns to look at him questioningly, not in the least bothered by the spar. “I hope that you didn’t just permanently damage my student, no matter how much he may have earned it with his attitude.”</p><p>“Everything I did is completely reversible and fully within the terms of the spar.” The kunoichi replies casually, then quirks a wry smile. “I promise I’ll fix it in a second; can I just take a moment to drive a point home?”</p><p>“As long as it’s purely <em>verbal</em> teaching, go on ahead.” Minato-sensei agrees and subsides, watching the kunoichi a tad too sharply to be just <em>protective.</em></p><p>“Now, Kakashi-kun.” Sakura-san addresses Bakashi, crouching just out of reach as if worried that Kakashi will decide to use his remaining arm to punch her or something. “Do you still think a med-nin is just a ‘support role’? Or that medical ninjutsu can’t be weaponised?”</p><p>Obito wonders whether he should be worried by the hero worship he can see growing in Rin’s eyes. If this is a foreshadowing of the tone she’s going to take with her team, he wonders whether it’s too soon to start running for the hills.</p><p>Kakashi grunts.</p><p>Sakura-san’s eyes narrow. “Try again.”</p><p>“No.” Kakashi grits out, bitter and humiliated, and Obito would almost feel sorry for his teammate if he wasn’t so <em>giddy.</em></p><p>“Do you understand now what I meant by not immediately assuming you know everything? Or that people may surprise you?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Kakashi bites back, seemingly having learnt that the kunoichi won’t accept caveman-speak as an answer.</p><p>“Good!” Sakura-san cheers, smiling again, her earlier sunshine-and-rainbows disposition making a return. “Rin-chan! How do you feel about a pop-quiz?”</p><p>Rin snaps to attention and hurries to her feet, stumbling until she kneels carefully between Kakashi and Sakura-san, eyes trained unfailingly on the older kunoichi.</p><p>“Now, how did I cut Kakashi’s muscles?”</p><p>Followed by-</p><p>“What’s another usage of the chakra scalpel?”</p><p>Followed by-</p><p>“Why does the Earth manipulation I used fall within the terms of ‘medical techniques only’?”</p><p>All the while Sakura-san heals Kakashi until the other boy can get to his feet without the slightest discomfort and slunk away to Minato-sensei’s side.</p><p>Finally, Minato calls an end to the ‘pop quiz’, a smile on his face, one hand determinedly ruffling Kakashi’s hair while the Hatake scowls but tellingly doesn’t move away.</p><p>“What I want to know,” their sensei announces, “is how you disrupted Kakashi’s chakra construct.”</p><p>Obito tunes back into the conversation between the kunoichi and watches as Sakura-san looks at Minato-sensei as if he’s an idiot.</p><p>“I blocked his tenketsu.” She says, her tone adding the ‘<em>duh</em>’ at the end even if she doesn’t actually say it.</p><p>“You know the location of the tenketsu?” Minato-sensei asks sharply, as if to double-check. “Accurately enough to hit it mid-fight?”</p><p>“What, like it’s hard?” Sakura-san shoots back, a frown twisting her brow. “It’s just memorising. I’ve always been good at that.”</p><p>“The Hyuuga can do it too, can’t they?” Obito butts in, because, yeah, it’s impressive, but doesn’t Konoha have an entire <em>Clan </em>whose fighting style revolves around precisely the same trick?</p><p>“Yes, Obito-kun,” Rin replies patiently, and Obito preens inwardly at the -kun at the end of his name, “but the Hyuuga have a doujutsu which allows them to <em>see</em> the tenketsu through the skin. Sakura-san did what they do, but, essentially, <em>blind</em>.”</p><p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p><p>“That’s…huh.” He manages, a bit unintelligently, but Sakura-san just laughs and even Minato-sensei chuckles at that.</p><p>“’Huh’ indeed.” He agrees. “Now, Rin, Obito, let’s see you guys spar.”</p><p>Obito glances at Rin, sees the assessing way her eyes flicker from Kakashi to Sakura, then fall thoughtfully to her own hands, which light up blue a second later. Then, a slow, sly grin appears on her face, and Obito swallows.</p><p>
  <em>Oh, crap. </em>
</p><hr/><p>Minato sighs as he falls into the chair opposite Sarutobi’s desk, adamantly refusing to acknowledge the presence of the Snake Sannin in the office for what’s meant to be a one-on-one audience and contemplating instead the hole in the Sandaime's otherwise-pristine office wall.</p><p>
  <em>That's new.</em>
</p><p>“Tough day, Minato-kun?” the Sandaime asks politely, and Minato gets the oddest sense that the man is laughing at him.</p><p>“Sakura beat Kakashi-kun in a spar in under a minute, using nothing but medical-ninjutsu, then proceeded to call him out for his arrogant and selfish behaviour, all within five minutes of meeting him.” He announces without fanfare, and the easy atmosphere from seconds back disappears in a blink.</p><p>“Yeah.” Minato says into the silence that falls, adding another sigh for good measure. “That was my reaction too. I didn’t even <em>know</em> medical ninjutsu <em>could</em> be weaponised.”</p><p>“Orochimaru?” Sarutobi asks, and the Snake Sannin finally gives up the act of the silent statue and offers a graceful shrug.</p><p>“Tsunade had been working on it, but the control needed to maintain the chakra scalpel – since that what I’m assuming Namikaze-san is referring to – <em>mid-battle, </em>proved too significant a hurdle to overcome.”</p><p>The Sandaime hums, and then his gaze falls on Minato again, sharper than before. “And her motivations? Did you discover anything suspicious?”</p><p>“Nothing to contradict what she told us yesterday.” Minato reports, making the effort to shift into a slightly more professional position on the chair he’s slumped on. “Had one minor incident where she froze and started hyperventilating, but beyond that, nothing odd.”</p><p>“A flashback?” Hiruzen wonders, and Minato aims for the same shrug Orochimaru had given before, but probably misses by a mile judging by the tiny flicker of amusement in the Hokage’s eyes.</p><p>“Whatever it was, she got over it quick.” He summarises.</p><p>“Anything else you’d like to add, Minato-kun?”</p><p>Minato thinks it over for a second, wondering whether his impression is enough for the claim, but then, that was the job Sarutobi saddled him with; if his judgement wasn’t trusted, he wouldn’t have been tasked with reporting on Sakura during her ‘probation period’.</p><p>“She’s smart.” He says at last, and that seems to draw Orochimaru’s attention. “<em>Very </em>smart. Book-smarts and a knack for people, from what I’ve seen. I…I’d like to have her play shogi against Shikaku, if we find the time. I think it could prove…interesting.”</p><p>“<em>That</em> smart, huh?” Sarutobi smiles, very aware that for all of Minato’s alleged genius, he’s never won against the Nara at any of the boardgames they’ve played. “Well. I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we? For now though, don’t let her know anything’s amiss, please.”</p><p>“Will do, Hokage-sama.” Minato agrees, rising from his seat, knowing a dismissal when he hears one.</p><p>“And, Minato-kun?” Sarutobi stops him at the door, and Minato pauses, looking back. “Tell Kushina-chan next time when you get back from your mission, especially if the mission ends with you being seen taking a young lady back to your flat. I don’t think my door, or my wall can take any more of her, ah, <em>polite requests for answers.</em>”</p><p>Minato runs out of that door so fast he reckons than even his <em>Hiraishin </em>would’ve been slower.</p>
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